Are you experiencing parenting issues in your home related to screen time? We’ve all been there. It is not too late to make changes that will have a lasting impact on your family and future generations. Below is a list of common screen time problems and solutions to help you get your kids back.
Parenting Problems and Solutions
Here are some of the most common parenting issues and solutions related to screen time that parents are facing today.
Parenting Issue # 1: Kids display negative attitudes about their peers being allowed more screen time than they are
Many kids and teens complain that their peers have more screen time privileges than they do. Maybe the neighborhood kids are allowed to play Nintendo Switch but your family has decided not to do video games. Maybe every student in the fourth grade class has a smartphone, except your child. Maybe your teen’s friends are on all the popular social media platforms, but you only feel comfortable with the most outdated social media option.
Whatever your boundary is, your kid is bucking up against it with complaints and a negative attitude.
Parenting Solutions:
- Accept this tough part of parenting with grace and strength. It’s not easy to be the perceived bad guy. We all want our kids to like us. But the truth is, most of our kids are not going to understand and appreciate every single boundary we set over the years. Our job is to love them, care for them, and protect them. Sometimes that looks like not allowing something that their peers are allowed to do. Whether your children thank you down the line or not, you are doing the right thing when you hold to your convictions and limit screen time for their wellbeing.
- Hear your kids out. Keeping an open line of communication and validating their feelings can go a long way to strengthen your relationship. This does not mean that you have to change your screen time standards. You may choose to compromise or you may choose to stand firm on what you believe is best for your child. But either way, be approachable. Let your children know that you want to hear their feedback and their struggles.
- Maybe there is a way to meet the root need your child is voicing without giving them more screen time than you are comfortable with. If they feel left out because their peers stay up until midnight playing video games together, consider how you can meet their relational needs. Throw a screen free pizza party for your child and their friends. Provide board games and outdoor activities. Be willing to make your house the home where friends are welcome to hang out. Add a little extra money to grocery budget for snacks and juice. At the root of excessive device usage is often a craving for connection. Make your home an environment where your kids’ relational needs are met through strong family bonds and screen free hospitality.
Parenting Issue # 2 : Kids display behavior struggles surrounding screen time
Many kids have tantrums, angry outbursts, and trouble regulating themselves after hours of time on tech. Parents today are noticing that kids have trouble self-regulating and transferring to the next expected activity.
We’ve all seen the kid in public who enters full blown meltdown mode when their parent removes the smartphone from the palm of their hand. Most of us have been there ourselves. It is embarrassing.
Kids today are struggling to regulate after screen time. They go from a ton of overstimulating sensory input from the flashy device back to regular old real life and their brains seem like they simply can’t compute.
Young children kick, whine, scream, cry, and thrash around on the ground as when their most loved possession has been taken from them—the screen.
Parenting Solutions:
- First and foremost, if screen time has gotten out of balance in your household, do a screen detox as a family. There’s no better way to lift the brain fog and gain a fresh perspective on how devices may be impacting your children than to see them unplug. There may be an initial period of struggles for the first few days off tech, but after that, most children thrive offline.
- Give your child forewarning of when screen time will be ending. Depending on your child’s age, consider alerting your child five minutes and one minute before they will need to hand over the device. Make sure your child pauses their time online and looks you in the eyes to gain understanding when you give these warnings.
- Provide something to look forward to after screen time ends such as quality time with you reading a book together, a yummy treat, or a family walk.
- Eliminate or reduce screen time until your child is at a more emotionally mature age and shows the ability to self-regulate and transfer to new activities well. The longer you can delay screen usage, the better. If you’ve already made mistakes in this department, know that it is not too late to make a major change and you are in good company. You can take away screen time in the little years and reintroduce it down the line when your children are more mature.
Parenting Issue # 3: Kids insist on more screen time than you as a parent are comfortable with
No matter how much screen time we allow, our children always want more. When it is time to turn the television off, the kids beg for one more show. When tablet time is over, the toddler throws an epic tantrum. When dinner is ready, the teen insists that the world will absolutely implode if he cannot finish his video game.
It can be so frustrating for parents to deal with the aftermath of screen time. Whatever break we believe we got from our kids while the devices were in use becomes insignificant when we face the post screen time blow outs that ensue when it is time to transfer to the next activity.
Parenting Solutions:
- Consider creating a screen time contract with your older children. Create terms that you both can agree to. This can include things like how much screen time is allowed, what days screen time is allowed, what tasks must be completed before screen time, and what behavior is expected when screen time is over. You can also create clear consequences for if a child violates the screen time agreement by whining, shouting, or arguing after device time is over. A potential consequence would be loss of screen time privileges for the amount of time that you designate as appropriate.
- For younger children, consider posting a clear visual screen time chart that alerts them of how much screen time they are allotted each week and on which days it will be allowed. Edge on the side of strict screen time limits. It is much easier to increase these time constraints later than it is to realize you gave too much and start pulling back, although that is possible too. For elementary aged children, I would suggest delaying screen time altogether or offering 30 minutes of slow paced television every other day.
Parenting Issue # 4: Kids complain about the screen time privileges their siblings get and demand fairness
Another big parenting problem facing us today is the struggle to keep screen time completely fair between siblings of varying ages and needs. Perhaps one of your children has a lot of medical issues and appointments each week so you allow them extra screen time before or after those doctor visits in the car. This is reasonable, but your other children might not think so. They want to be allowed the same amount of screen time as their sibling.
Or maybe one sibling gets to run errands with dad on a Saturday and the other siblings watch a movie at home during that time. Does the sibling who spent time with dad get to watch a movie when he gets home? Do the siblings that already watched a movie get to join him? How are we as parents supposed to referee these types of family issues and keep the peace?
Parenting Solutions:
- Consider taking this opportunity to teach your children that life is not perfectly fair all the time. It is natural that an older child would have different privileges than a younger child. It is also natural that sometimes we will get to do things we enjoy and sometimes we won’t. Instead of feeling pressure to make things perfectly even all of the time, relieve yourself of this parenting stress and teach your children a valuable lesson in the process.
- You know what is best for your unique family. If you desire to make screen time even between your kids, provide them each with our free downloadable Screen Time Budget Tracker for Kids. Have your children color in the stars after they cash in their screen time. If one sibling got to enjoy screen time while another sibling was not around, give that sibling an opportunity to cash in at a different time.
- Come up with a compromise that pleases all parties involved. In our home, we utilize audiobooks for kids. These recorded stories don’t leave children overstimulated the way that television, video games, and apps for kids do. Allow your kids to listen to audiobooks instead of engaging in traditional screen time activities.
Parenting Issue # 5: Kids prefer to isolate with their electronic devices rather than interacting with their family and friends
A huge pain point for parents today is that they feel disconnected from their own children. Kids are beginning to prefer spending time with devices alone over enjoying the company of family and peers.
This is so scary! The very devices that promise ease of connection are actually disconnecting us from the people under our very same roof. If you are seeing this problem in your home, it’s time for a major wake up call. Push aside digital distractions and pursue your family.
We are seeing a rise in communication problems among kids and teens that have been permitted excessive screen time usage. They struggle to make eye contact, answer basic questions, and carry on the type friendly conversation that was common before tech infiltrated our homes.
Parents often get one word answers from their device-dependent teens and when these kids do hang out with peers, they often sit around on separate devices or watch one another play video games in silence.
Parenting Solutions:
- Make a low-tech life attractive to your children by putting devices in their proper place in your own life. Choose to keep your smartphone powered down in the junk drawer during evenings with your family. Engage with your kids, make conversation, and invite them to cook with you. Work on screen free hobbies of your own in front of your children such as knitting, gardening, woodworking, drawing, writing, playing an instrument, etc. Live a vibrant low-tech life that your children will desire to emulate. Whenever we start a new hobby or endeavor in our home, we don’t have to convince our kids. They want to try it for themselves. Whether you are scrolling on your smartphone or learning to draw from a book at your dining room table, your kids will want to follow suit.
- Make Screen Free Hospitality a big part of your family’s life. Many of us turn to screens for the connection that we are lacking in our real lives. If your children are beginning to desire screen time more than family time or time with peers, consider hosting other people into your home on a regular basis. We aim to gather with other families once a week in the summer and once a month during the school year. Try something fun and easy like a Make-Your-Own-Sundae bar, a Taco Tuesday, or a Family Game Night. Require your kids to participate without a device. Over time, they will open up and enjoy the company of others in real life.
Common Screen Time Problems
Are you noticing any these types of issues in your children after screen time?
- Behavioral problems
- Increased tantrums
- Whining for more time on devices
- Lack of imaginative play
- Refusal to play independently
- Discomfort playing outdoors
- Communication problems
- Complaining the peers are allowed more screen time
- Lost interest in reading books or being read to
- Lack of self-control and problems accepting screen time boundaries
- Anxiousness after long periods of time on screens
- Sleep issues after hours on tech
- Irritability, moodiness, and angry when screen time comes to an end
- The desire to isolate with devices instead of participate in family activities
- Boredom with activities that don’t involve screens
- Brain fog or dysregulation after hours on tech
- Attention struggles related to screen time
Many of these problems are commonplace for today’s high-tech children, but there is hope. When my husband and I saw the imbalance that screen time caused in own home, we chose to make changes and those changes have paid off in dividends over the years.
We no longer have kids who whine for screens, expect entertainment, or bulk at the idea of free play outdoors. When we took daily screen time off the table, our kids became…
- Creative in play
- Driven in their pursuit of screen free skills
- Voracious readers
- Free Thinkers
- Independent instead of tech dependent
It is totally possibly to do a 180 and change your family’s trajectory for good. Technology can go from something you allow your children to depend on to get through the day to a tool used strategically in moderation.
Seven years ago my husband and I evaluated how much technology we were all using. Both of us had smartphones and multiple types of social media accounts. There was a television that streamed shows in our living room for most of the day. We realized that we could continue being a “plugged-in” but checked out family or we could unplug from the virtual world and plug into what truly mattered at home.
That is about the time that we got rid of our TV for good, deleted all of our social media accounts, traded our smartphones in for flip phones, and decided that our children would not spend their developing years scrolling on any kind of personal device.
While we acknowledge technology as the valuable tool that it is, we refuse to be device-dependent and disconnected from the ones we love most.
These drastic lifestyle choices were some of the BEST decisions we ever made as a couple. Our choice to majorly reduce screen time eliminated so many parenting issues that I see others facing but most importantly, it pulled our family off the path to disconnection and discord. In this blog post, I want to help you do the same!
Devices Disconnect Families
It is no secret that electronic devices are causing division within families all around the world. Both adults and children are consumed with their technology. Modern parents are struggling to be present and spend quality time with their children because of their own excessive device usage, whether their screen time is primarily for work, pleasure, or an unbalanced mixed of the two.
If you’ve ever turned to TV, video games, educational apps, or other screen time to occupy your children, you are NOT alone. While we adults spend our time scrolling, streaming, and clicking away on our laptops, many of our children spend their time plopped in front of their own screens.
Screen time for kids comes across as a convenient solution to our modern problems at first glance. Devices promise to help us get productive things done all the while giving us a break from our kids. But before we know it, an hour turns into two or more and our child’s post-screen time behavior is way harder to deal with than it was before we handed over the video game controller or unlocked unlimited cartoon streaming on our TV.
Parenting is not easy. Technology has brought a lot of unique challenges to families around the world today.
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